Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mapcode – A short address for any location on Earth

mapcode.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 124 posts

Re: Mapcode – A short address for any location on Earth

#41

Post by callesgg »

My first instinct was: bad idea.

But then when I thought about it is actualy something that has troubled my quite some times.

Lat and longitudes are perfectly fine but in general they are to "simple" for people to use.

When I think of a location in the world I generally think of the country cause I know to some extent where most country's are located.

For example I would to describe some place in Miami I would describe it as in the lower right side of US and continue to work downwards from that.

Re: Mapcode – A short address for any location on Earth

#42

Post by [deleted] »

jxf wrote: post #22

I'm a little confused about what this replaces, but it's definitely not postcodes. * Postcodes have a specific meaning: they're both a geographical area and a mail delivery zone (at least in the US). Replacing one short code with another, which requires a different and less reliable third-party service to correctly decode, doesn't seem like a good idea. * Latitudes and longitudes are unambiguous, well-understood, and…

[deleted]

Re: Mapcode – A short address for any location on Earth

#43

Post by linker3000 »

I started work on something pretty much like this about 5 years ago but never pursued it for various reasons.

I still have one of the registered domains with nothing to show for my preliminary work: www.tinynav.co.uk

I got as far as designing the encoding scheme, including a database of point types (house, utility pole, ancient monument, park, private event etc..), together with special codes for corporates to use for all their shops, fast food outlets etc.

I had the database tables worked out, populated the locations table with open source/public domain data such as civil and commercial airports and some other stuff. There was a front end that allowed for time-limited one-offs for things like 'Jo's birthday party', but then life took over!

Re: Mapcode – A short address for any location on Earth

#44

Post by lucb1e »

Honestly, I don't like it. At first I thought it was a short, sort of binary (at least machine-readable) representation of coordinates. A,A might be (0,0) in our coordinate system. Turns out it's not. It's not even global but country (or in the US, state) specific.

This means that the locations are controlled by a single entity together with country codes. Sure, postal codes are controlled by a single entity too, but at least they are regulated by the government using tax money instead of an arbitrary self-appointed committee.

I know it's meant to replace postal codes and not coordinates, but I'd like to see something that actually represents a place instead of an arbitrarily shaped region. OpenStreetMap's homepage happens to do this for their short URLs: http://osm.org/go/0GFeWn2RJ

Try moving on the OpenStreetMap map with the share menu opened and the short URL option selected. You'll see how it influences the short URL.

But anyway, back to replacing postal codes: the main advantage of this is that it'd be a universal and short code. In The Netherlands you could specify: NL 6114HT 41 and you'd have house number 41 at the Marktstraat (market street) in Susteren (city). Not much longer. And with this new system you'd still need to look up country-specific codes so I don't see much of an advantage.

Re: Mapcode – A short address for any location on Earth

#45

Post by Alupis »

jxf wrote: post #22

I'm a little confused about what this replaces, but it's definitely not postcodes. * Postcodes have a specific meaning: they're both a geographical area and a mail delivery zone (at least in the US). Replacing one short code with another, which requires a different and less reliable third-party service to correctly decode, doesn't seem like a good idea. * Latitudes and longitudes are unambiguous, well-understood, and…

Their own website is displaying/using MapCode's incorrectly.

For example, they have 0C.T4 and they say it's in Ireland and appears to be some bench in the picture.

However, if you use that MapCode, you will see it's the middle of some river in Amsterdam.

0C.T4 == 52.369764, 4.868898

Another:

81.J4W They seem to claim it's in Alaska, appears to be some road. However, it's another river in Amsterdam.

81.J4W == 52.508957, 4.769173

Re: Mapcode – A short address for any location on Earth

#47

Post by nandhp »

Alupis wrote: post #45
jxf wrote: post #22

I'm a little confused about what this replaces, but it's definitely not postcodes. * Postcodes have a specific meaning: they're both a geographical area and a mail delivery zone (at least in the US). Replacing one short code with another, which requires a different and less reliable third-party service to correctly decode, doesn't seem like a good idea. * Latitudes and longitudes are unambiguous, well-understood, and…

Their own website is displaying/using MapCode's incorrectly. For example, they have 0C.T4 and they say it's in Ireland and appears to be some bench in the picture. However, if you use that MapCode, you will see it's the middle of some river in Amsterdam. 0C.T4 == 52.369764, 4.868898 Another: 81.J4W They seem to claim it's in Alaska, appears to be some road. However, it's another river in Amsterdam. 81.J4W == 52.50895…

The shorter MapCodes are within the context of a specific country, but the "I have a MapCode" box defaults to the Netherlands. If you change that to Ireland, it's 0C.T4 is in the middle of a park near Dublin.

Re: Mapcode – A short address for any location on Earth

#48

Post by opium_tea »

Alupis wrote: post #45
jxf wrote: post #22

I'm a little confused about what this replaces, but it's definitely not postcodes. * Postcodes have a specific meaning: they're both a geographical area and a mail delivery zone (at least in the US). Replacing one short code with another, which requires a different and less reliable third-party service to correctly decode, doesn't seem like a good idea. * Latitudes and longitudes are unambiguous, well-understood, and…

Their own website is displaying/using MapCode's incorrectly. For example, they have 0C.T4 and they say it's in Ireland and appears to be some bench in the picture. However, if you use that MapCode, you will see it's the middle of some river in Amsterdam. 0C.T4 == 52.369764, 4.868898 Another: 81.J4W They seem to claim it's in Alaska, appears to be some road. However, it's another river in Amsterdam. 81.J4W == 52.50895…

Mapcodes also have to be combined with some context. In most places it's just the country name, but in large countries it also requires the state (or equivalent).

So if you go to the interactive map on the mapcodes site, there's a little link marked context and you need to change that to Ireland. Results in this:

http://www.mapcode.com/getcoords.html?iso3=125&mapcode=0C.T4...

Re: Mapcode – A short address for any location on Earth

#49

Post by [deleted] »

Alupis wrote: post #45
jxf wrote: post #22

I'm a little confused about what this replaces, but it's definitely not postcodes. * Postcodes have a specific meaning: they're both a geographical area and a mail delivery zone (at least in the US). Replacing one short code with another, which requires a different and less reliable third-party service to correctly decode, doesn't seem like a good idea. * Latitudes and longitudes are unambiguous, well-understood, and…

Their own website is displaying/using MapCode's incorrectly. For example, they have 0C.T4 and they say it's in Ireland and appears to be some bench in the picture. However, if you use that MapCode, you will see it's the middle of some river in Amsterdam. 0C.T4 == 52.369764, 4.868898 Another: 81.J4W They seem to claim it's in Alaska, appears to be some road. However, it's another river in Amsterdam. 81.J4W == 52.50895…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN